My mind holds only what I think with God.
(135) If I defend myself I am attacked.
(136) Sickness is a defense against the truth.
This is one of those great lessons you can practice in your daily life and see that it is true. Next time someone is attacking you, do not respond. Just be still. Don’t do anything. Be like a child, totally defenseless.
You’ll probably feel like an idiot the first few times you attempt this – like you are retarded just standing there with no reaction – but you’ll see instantly that when you don’t defend yourself, the attacking stops immediately.
When you don’t enter into a discussion with someone, the conversation comes to an abrupt end. When you listen, truly listen, to what someone else is saying, really hear them, give them your full attention, and then don’t participate with defense or attack … something truly miraculous happens.
Try it.
Just be present with someone. Start to listen.
Once thing you will start to notice, as you begin to practice in this way, is that the majority of your time before was spent in formulating your own ideas while someone else was talking. You’ll realize that you were never fully present. You were in your own head, thinking about what you’ll say next.
Most people spend their time in conversations waiting for another person to end a sentence, so they can say something back.
Try this for an experiment: Just be present. Don’t formulate sentences in your head while someone else is talking. Really listen. Be still. Be focused on what the other person is saying.
THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU!
That is the Christ Himself speaking.
Even when someone is attacking you, just listen. Accept it with gratitude. This is the reason you will not need to defend yourself. Because you’ll be open to this new information that is being given to you.
If they demand a reaction out of you (”what do you have to say for yourself??” ), you can say: “I’m listening.”
Just be present and open. That’s the key. The key to salvation is this: “Your doing this to yourself.”
You will quickly realize that the person “out there” is not out there at all. He is you. He is an image, a reflection of your own inner state of mind. You’re doing this to yourself. Nothing at all is happening.
So you don’t have to react to figures in your dream anymore. “Let them be as hateful or as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.”
There is no need to defend yourself.
The other day when my friend was yelling at me to get a job, I really listened and took it into consideration. There is no need to defend myself. I’m always open to another possibility, and my brother is always offering me a new bright solution.
EJ said it best: “Think of the healing that occurs when you say ‘paper or plastic?’”
That’s so awesome.
It’s true. There is nothing separate from function, as if there is one path more special than another path.
“A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it.”
I love that.
“It does not depend on itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it. It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to accomplishment of any goal that serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone.”
Let every action “serve the greater plan established for the good of everyone.”
Tony Parson says: “One moment of presence brings more light into the world than a thousand years of “good works. In presence, all action is uncluttered and unsullied. It is spontaneity born from stillness.”
Eckhart Tolle talks about the waiter who is completely present as he puts a plate on the table in front of a customer. Pure presence. That is the function of a Teacher of God. To be totally present in every situation, not waiting for some “far off” future moment in which your life will begin.
Your life is happening now. This is it. This is all there is. Are you here? Or is your mind elsewhere? Bring yourself back into this moment, back into this day.
Be here, be now.
You who are now the bringer of salvation:
This is the day of full accomplishment. This is the day you fulfill your function by bringing light to darkness. The darkness in you has been brought to light. Carry it back to darkness, from the holy instant to which you brought it. You are made whole in your desire to make whole. Let your light encompass all of your actions. This is the only day you have. Give it your 100% full attention.
Amazing, right?
Look at the simplicity.
Salvation is not complicated.
“Try not to shape this day as you would believe would benefit you most. For you cannot conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning.”
“Learn today. And all the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Eastertime with you. Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, and acknowledge it with this:
“This is my Eastertime. And I would keep it holy. I will not defend myself, because the Son of God needs no defense against the truth of his reality.”
And of course, that leads to the 2nd lesson of the day: If you don’t defend yourself, sickness becomes impossible.
The only reason you get sick is because you defend yourself. Sickness is a defense against the truth.
So, don’t defend yourself and watch what happens. You’ll be amazed by the healing that occurs, in you and for the world.
I just had an awesome thought after reading your blog. I’ve been wrapped up in this contrast thing? I just realized that I have to be able to see the contrast and when i really do the form dissolves. I can’t see the contrast by myself. The role of the teacher is to provide that contrast. So, in effect, I am seeing the truth through the eyes of Lisa Natoli! That is way cool! Thank you so much for helping me see. What are we going to look at next!
To me, to “plan” to not defend yourself, as a practice, is a defense. An ego stratagy, an old way of thinking/doing.
The lesson says If I defend myself I AM ATTACKED.
It doesn’t say if I am attacked DON”T DEFEND yourself.
If “someone is attacking you” you already ARE defending yourself.
Considering myself as being attacked IS defending myself!
I don’t think even one time this lesson say to NOT defend yourself. The ego assumes that’s what it says because the ego wants to “get it right”. But it’s about healing, transformation….not right and wrong. The idea of right and wrong is the same as the idea of sin.
To me, this isn’t a course in behavior modification. It’s a course in miraculous transformation. And it takes a miracle to ‘get out’ of the paradox this lesson ‘inputs’
to our old way of thinking about how attack and defense is the same damn thing in a split version of the singularity of mind!
A good majority of this lesson talks about the folly of defense, much of which is about planning. 135 is not, in my opinion, instructing us to not defend ourselves. It, instead, explains the effects of attacking ourselves in the guise of defense, to make us aware that we do it and to show us that we wouldn’t want to if we were in our right minds. When we see our defenses manifest, that’s where healing is available. The point is not to stop doing it, there’s no healiong in that. It’s to realize the self defeating absurdity of doing it. That’s the ah-ha moment, that’s disappearing, that’s “an experience. This is the learning found in miracles. That’s where remembering to laugh happens.
From Lesson 135 -
We will anticipate that time today with present confidence, for this is part of what was planned for us. We will be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this today. We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defencelessness is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.
For fifteen minutes twice today we rest from senseless planning, and from every thought which blocks the truth from entering our minds. Today we will receive instead of plan, that we may give instead of organize. And we are given truly, as we say:
“If I defend myself I am attacked.
But in defencelessness I will be strong,
And I will learn what my defenses hide.”
Nothing but that….Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning. Learn today.
Thanks EJ
Debi S.
great- thanks